Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 04 - Chocolate Mousse Attack

by Sally Berneathy

  “Yes. Would you like to come out of the closet and sit down?”

  “I have cookies.” I held out the container. Whatever the circumstances, offer food or beverage. My mother taught me manners.

  “I…”

  Fred held out his hand.

  She looked at it doubtfully.

  He stepped back from the closet. “If you’d like to go downstairs, I’ll make some coffee and we can discuss this.”

  She shivered and looked down at her gown. “I’ve been sleepwalking again.” Her voice was quiet, without emotion, resigned.

  Sleepwalking was a little weird, but I supposed it was better than having a neighbor who was psycho.

  “I’ll get you a robe and then we’ll go downstairs and have coffee and some of Lindsay’s cookies.”

  He disappeared and she looked at me. “I’m sorry. This hasn’t happened since I was a child.”

  I shrugged. “The stress of moving, meeting new people. Don’t worry about it. Fred needs a little excitement in his life. Nobody’s tried to kill him in a couple of months.”

  Before she could ask what I meant, Fred returned with a white terry cloth robe and handed it to Sophie.

  We went downstairs to the breakfast nook. The large bay window looked out on a wonderful view of trees whose leaves disappeared into thin air before they could fall to the ground and birds that never pooped. Of course it was dark so we couldn’t see all that, but I could feel the tidiness pressing against the window, trying to get inside and attack me.

  While Fred made coffee, Sophie and I sat at the polished oak table that absorbed crumbs before they had a chance to settle on its surface.

  “This isn’t necessary,” Sophie said. “I should go home. I’ve disturbed you all enough already.”

  “It’s okay, really. I get up at four anyway to go to work, and I’m not sure Fred ever sleeps. I think he’s part robot.”

  “I’m standing right here. I can hear you talking about me.” Fred set two cups of coffee and a fresh Coke on the table then took a chair across from Sophie.

  I picked up the Coke. “The robot theory explains the super hearing.”

  Sophie wrapped her hands around the mug Fred had set in front of her. “I’m so sorry I woke you two.”

  “Who’s Carolyn?” Fred asked.

  A beautiful woman with a mystery. Fred was hooked.

  And I was mildly curious.

  Sophie frowned. “I don’t know anyone named Carolyn. Why do you keep asking me about that name?”

  I took a sip of Coke and studied her. She seemed genuinely puzzled. “When I tried to wake you, you called me that name.”

  “I did?” She shook her head. “It’s a common name. I’ve probably known a Carolyn somewhere over the years.”

  “Do you remember what you were dreaming?” Fred asked.

  “Yes.” She bit her lip, her forehead furrowed and she shook her head. “It was scary. There was a man with a knife and…blood.” She gave a slight shrug and attempted an even slighter smile. “A nightmare.”

  “It’s unlikely a man is going to be named Carolyn,” I said. “Was there a woman in your dream?”

  “No.”

  Her answer came so quickly I didn’t quite believe her.

  She toyed with her cup, studying the dark liquid as if it were a crystal ball where she could find answers. She hadn’t taken even a sip. I’m a Coke and tea person myself, but I was certain Fred made good coffee no matter how oxymoronic that term sounded to me.

  “So you had problems with sleepwalking when you were a child?” Fred asked.

  She looked up and shrugged. “It’s pretty typical for kids, I guess. I grew out of it.”

  “When you lived across the street as a child, did you know the people who lived in this house, maybe come over to visit sometimes?”

  Sophie bit her lip. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember who lived here. I believe the place was vacant. I was very young when we moved away.”

  “But you remembered living here. You wanted to come back to your old house.”

  She gave a tight smile. “My parents died not long after we moved to Nebraska. My memories of living here are…” She spread her hands as if searching for the right words. “I have only vague memories of childhood, memories of a happy home with my parents. My aunt, my mother’s sister who raised me, was wonderful, but I never forgot my mother and father. When I decided to start my own interior decorating company and discovered my old house was for sale, it seemed like a sign. So I made the decision to move here.” She rose stiffly. “I do apologize. I promise to lock myself inside every night from here on out so this won’t happen again.”

  Fred and I stood also. “No problem. I was going to ask you over for coffee anyway.” He smiled.

  Sophie relaxed noticeably, her own smile becoming more genuine and less forced. “I’ll bring your robe back tomorrow.”

  Fred walked her to the door, and he and I stood on his porch until she was safely inside her house.

  “Well,” I said, “that was strange. Remember when people kept trying to get in my basement to get the money that wasn’t there? Maybe there’s hidden treasure in your house and she came over to find it. Maybe she wasn’t really sleepwalking. Maybe somebody buried gold here and she needs to find it to pay for all the renovations on that house.”

  Fred sighed and shook his head. “You have quite an imagination.”

  *~*~*

  I didn’t see any point in going back to bed so I dressed and went in to work early. By the time Paula got there, I’d already made up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and eaten a substantial part of it. After a hard night of hauling strange women out of the closet, there’s nothing like a breakfast of cookie dough and Coke.

  “Come in early to take advantage of the cooler morning?” she asked as she tied on a heavy apron.

  I pulled out a mixing bowl to start a Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake. “Repair guy should be here by nine. We can survive until then. No, I’m up early because Fred had a woman in his closet and couldn’t get her out.”

  Paula paused with one hand holding her blond hair back and the other positioned to secure it with an elastic band. Her forehead creased in a frown. “Is this one of those strange euphemisms men are always coming up with?”

  “No!” I broke bittersweet chocolate into small pieces in a bowl and told Paula about the night’s events.

  She took out the dough she’d left to rise overnight in the refrigerator and began preparing cinnamon rolls. They’re not chocolate, but they’re pretty darn good. Extra cinnamon, extra butter. Our customers love them and I even sneak a few bites from time to time when nobody’s looking. I don’t want word to get out that I’m eating something other than chocolate. I have a reputation to uphold.

  “Sleepwalking is more common than you might think,” Paula said, “especially when the person’s under stress. I’m sure our new neighbor will be fine. But you might want to remember to lock your doors at night, just in case.”

  Paula’s always the voice of reason. The only time I’ve ever seen her get upset was when her psycho ex-husband kidnapped her son Zach. He’s in prison now. The ex-husband, not Zach. He lives with his mother next door to me. I’m his “Anlinny.” That’s kid-speak for Aunt Lindsay. He can say my name now since he’s all of three years old, but he still calls me Anlinny.

  I put chocolate and butter into the microwave to melt. “I think I saw Rick parked in the street last night, watching my house.”

  Paula smacked the dough with a rolling pin bigger than her arm. “That doesn’t surprise me. Rick’s not the type to give up just because you have papers saying you’re divorced. That man is seriously nuts.”

  “Your ex is seriously nuts. Mine’s just crazy nuts. Rick would never try to kill me like yours did.” I stirred the melted chocolate and thought about that for a minute. “But I would not be willing to sign a notarized statement to that effect.”

  The air conditioning guys came to fix the
air conditioning, my Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake came out perfect, and I made a lot of people happy and full. It was a good day.

  Near closing time, I was cleaning off tables when I looked up to see Paula standing at the counter, talking to the only guy left in the place. Of course, she talks to people all the time, taking orders, asking if they need anything else, but she actually seemed to be having a conversation with this guy.

  Paula has a lot of scars—physical and emotional—from her marriage to Zach’s father, and she doesn’t make friends readily. It took me almost a year, working with her every day, to convince her to discuss more than the menu and how much flour we needed to order.

  But she looked relaxed and was actually smiling while talking to this guy.

  I couldn’t tell a lot about him from his back. He wore a white shirt with dark slacks and he had blond hair—natural, not highlighted like Rick’s. I moved closer to the counter, trying to get a better look and be unobtrusive while carrying a tray of dirty dishes to the kitchen. The smears on his plate indicated he’d had a piece of my Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake and had eaten every bite. But that didn’t really mean anything. Even Rick likes my chocolate.

  I angled through the opening on the other side of the cash register and leaned around to study his face. Damn dishes leaned too. Slid right off the tray and crashed to the floor. I got a good look at the guy’s face when he and Paula both jerked their heads in my direction. My initial impression of him was that he looked startled.

  Paula rushed over. “Let me help you.”

  While we were picking up broken glass and greasy food, the bell over the door jingled. I flinched and almost cut my finger on a piece of chocolate covered glass. I hoped it wasn’t the sound of Paula’s guy leaving.

  I stood and looked around. The stool where he’d been sitting was empty. Way to go, Lindsay! Paula finally shows a little interest in a man, and you run him off!

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Paula put the last of the big pieces back on the tray. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve dropped more dishes than you have.” She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a broom.

  “No, I mean because your friend left when I created the big bang.” I stood with the tray of broken glass and garbage.

  “He wasn’t my friend. I’ve never met him before.” She swept energetically at the mess. A bit too energetically?

  “But he might have become your friend if I hadn’t interrupted.”

  Her blue eyes were clear and guileless, but her cheeks had a tinge of pink. A blush? From Paula? “He was a customer. I was being polite. That’s all.”

  I looked toward the empty stool and noticed a business card lying beside the plate. Aha! He’d left her a way to reach him!

  I hurried toward the kitchen to dump my mess then come back and grab the card before Paula had a chance to throw it away without even reading it.

  The bell jingled again and I turned back to look, hoping he’d returned.

  It was Rick.

  “We’re closed.” I went on to the kitchen and tossed the mess into the garbage can.

  Paula followed me with the contents of her dust pan. “He just sat down at the counter.”

  “Of course he did.” I grabbed a mop, filled a bucket with water and cleaner then returned to the front.

  Rick was sitting on a stool next to the dirty dish, holding the business card. “A history professor? Are you branching out from cops to men with brains?”

  I snatched the card from him and stuck it in the pocket of my cutoffs. “I’m going to take some classes. Not that it’s any of your business.” I ignored the remark about cops. Now that Rick and I were divorced, I was dating Detective Adam Trent of the Pleasant Grove Police Department. Actually we’d been sort of dating for over a year while those papers were pending, but he refused to be the official man in my life until I was officially unmarried. He’s burdened with a lot of high moral standards that drive me freaking crazy sometimes. Not only did he make me wait that year, but he refuses to fix any of my speeding tickets. Sometimes people carry those moral standards a little too far.

  Since Rick had dated Muffy, Becky, Vanessa, Lisa, Susan, Mary, Julia, etc., etc., while we were married, he certainly had no right to complain about Trent, but Rick hates to lose any of his possessions, even the ones he doesn’t value.

  He spread his hands and smiled the smile that sold a lot of commercial real estate to gullible buyers and a lot of Rick to gullible women. Yes, I fell for it once and married him. But I was young and dumb in those days. Now I knew if he was smiling, that meant he wanted something.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t suppose it is any of my business.” His smile turned sad. “I screwed up and lost that right, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.” I reached into the display case, withdrew the last chocolate chip cookie and handed it to him on a napkin. “Compliments of the house. Now go. We need to lock up.”

  As if on cue, Paula appeared from the kitchen with the shop key in her hand and went over to stand beside the front door.

  Rick accepted the cookie and smiled again but made no move to leave. I sighed and waited.

  He took a bite and rolled his eyes as if in ecstasy. “You make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.”

  “At least we agree on one thing.” I lifted the mop and let the water drain back into the bucket. “Now I really need to lock up and clean up. Everything left in here will get mopped.”

  Rick smiled sadly, combining two of his most effective expressions. This was going to be big!

  “I miss that sense of humor,” he said.

  “You mean the one you used to call warped and sick and strange? That’s the sense of humor you miss?”

  He laughed.

  “Damn it, Rick, I’m busy, I’ve been up since two o’clock this morning and I’m in no mood for your garbage. You have thirty seconds to get out of here before I smack you in the face with this mop.”

  He blanched. If I’d threatened him with a gun he’d have laughed it off, but the thought of getting mop water on his perfect hair, perfect shirt and perfect pants terrified him.

  “I need a favor, Lindsay.” He cleared his throat. “And I’m willing to do a favor for you. We still have some properties to sign off on, and I’m willing to throw in a little extra.”

  The only things I’d asked for in the divorce were my shop, Death by Chocolate, the rental house where Paula and Zach lived and the house where I lived. Death by Chocolate brings in a decent income, but I’m not getting rich. And Rick had enough money stashed in offshore accounts to qualify as pretty close to rich. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to listen to what he wanted in exchange for some of his precious money.

  “How much extra?”

  He shrugged. “A thousand?”

  “Ten.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Thousand?”

  “Yep. And I already know that much wouldn’t even cause a ripple in your funds.”

  He drew in a deep breath. “Okay. So we have a deal?”

  My chest tightened in fear. If Rick agreed to part with that much money so readily, he must want a really big favor. Murder? An alibi?

  “Not until you tell me who you want me to kill. If it’s your mother, we might be able to work something out.”

  He tried to smile again, but it got stuck halfway. “It’s nothing really. You’ll probably enjoy it.”

  Paula, waiting at the front door, key in hand, ready to close up as soon as we could get rid of Rick, shook her head firmly.

  “What do you want that’s going to be so enjoyable for me you have to pay me ten thousand dollars to enjoy it?”

  “Just one little favor. I need you to babysit Rickie for a couple of weeks while Ginger and I are in Hawaii.”

  Chapter Three

  “You want me to babysit your son? Not for all the chocolate on the planet!”

  Rick looked uncomfortable. I liked that look on him. “Please? Grace just dumped him on me. She’s off on
a honeymoon with some creep who’s only interested in her because she’s getting an outrageous amount of child support from me, enough you’d think she could hire a babysitter. But, no, she dropped the little…” He stopped and compressed his lips to hold back the name he’d been about to call his son. Demon child? Brat? Unholy terror? “She left him on my front porch and drove away.”

  I tried unsuccessfully to keep the smile off my face. “That’s your problem, not mine.”

  “He’s your stepson!”

  My chin fell straight to the floor. “Excuse me? I never met that child until a few months ago and even then you said he wasn’t yours until DNA proved he is! No, he is not my stepson and I’m not going to babysit him!”

  Rick put on his pitiful expression. “What am I supposed to do? The tickets to Hawaii are nonrefundable.”

  “You have two choices. Get on Craig’s List and find a babysitter or eat the tickets.” I nodded to Paula, and she opened the door. “Neither of those involves me. Good-bye.” I lifted the mop threateningly again.

  Rick stepped back, moving in the direction of the open door. “What am I going to do if I get a babysitter and when Grace finds out I left her son with a stranger, she takes away my visitation rights?”

  I laughed. “Off the top of my head, I’d guess you’d celebrate.”

  “One day, Lindsay, you’ll need a favor from me, and I’ll remember this.”

  “You will remember? Been taking your ginkgo biloba, have you?”

  He turned and headed for the door but not before I saw his angry expression. Rick doesn’t like not getting his way. You’d think after eight years of marriage to me and one year of divorce he’d be used to it.

  *~*~*

  I left work, got in my little red Celica and called Trent before I pulled out of the parking lot. “Have I got some stories to tell you,” I said as soon as he answered the phone. Because we both work crazy hours, we sometimes can’t get together until the weekends. It was only Wednesday.

  “Are you driving while talking on your cell phone?” he asked. As I said, sometimes he takes the business of following the rules way too seriously.